Drug Lord: The Book

"The drug smuggling business goes on, the slaughtered dead pile up, the U.S. agencies continue to ratchet up their budgets, the prisons grow larger and all the real rules of the game are in this book, some kind of masterpiece." -- Charles Bowden

Tagged: Mexican military

During sleepless nights in an immigrant detention center in Texas just north of the border, Emilio Gutierrez Soto has had a lot of time to think. Shivering on a flimsy mattress under thin sheets, 54-year-old Gutierrez finds himself circling back to the same question: Was it worth it?

Was it worth writing those articles critical of the Mexican military? Was it worth having to flee Mexico after receiving threats against his life?

Many miles away, in a teeming Mexican metropolis, Julio Omar Gomez is not confined behind bars, but might as well be.

Since last spring, Gomez, 37, has been living under state protection in a cramped, anonymous apartment many miles from home. He typically only leaves for appointments with his psychologist, who is treating him for anxiety and post-traumatic stress.

Gomez, too, wonders whether his journalism was worth it. Was exposing government corruption in his home state of Baja California Sur worth the three attacks on his life? Was it worth having to send his children into hiding?

Last year, reporters and photographers turned up dead in Mexico at a rate of about one per month, making it the most dangerous country in the world for journalists after war-torn Syria. They were some of the country’s most fearless investigators and sharp-tongued critics, shot down while shopping, while reclining in a hammock, while driving children to school. In January, 77-year-old opinion columnist Carlos Dominguez was waiting at a traffic light with his grandchildren when three men stabbed him 21 times.

(BREITBART) — MATAMOROS, Tamaulipas — A series of recent gun battles and executions in this border city and in Rio Bravo led to nearly a dozen deaths as clashes with military forces and internal turmoil within the Gulf Cartel is reaching a boiling point.

The violence began last week in the Buena Vista neighborhood of Matamoros when cartel gunmen clashed with military and police forces. As usual, the fighting led to blockades, where cartel gunmen hijacked various vehicles to choke chances of police pursuit down main avenues. In Rio Bravo, troops killed several gunmen throughout the city.

The fighting and a series of apparent executions in both Matamoros and Rio Bravo led to the death of several men who are all believed to be part of one of the various factions that make up the Gulf Cartel.

In the downtown area of Matamoros, authorities responded to a local business where they found four men killed. The four cartel members had all been shot in the head execution-style.